Happy Saturday morning all:

”There is no such thing as fun for the whole family.” ~ Jerry Seinfeld

Wrong Jerry, this past weekend was spent with my three brothers and it was nothing less than marvelous.

This morning it’s a cold 9 degrees C outside hence my piping hot coffee is amazing, and quite necessary. Now I best get started, if only to keep warm.

An unsuspecting driver – Last weekend, it was nearly midnight on Friday evening and I was sitting in the parking lot of our nearby Trading Post. Along with a few bats I was sitting alongside a road with no traffic waiting for my brothers so as to guide them in to Northern Comfort.

I don’t know why, but out of nowhere a white pickup truck pulled into the parking lot and stopped. Then, less than a minute later, I saw my brother’s rental car roll up – straight up to the pickup truck that is.

Without looking my brother Artie jumped out and ran directly to the white vehicle; “The password is; the purple cow is in the red field” he shouted at an unsuspecting and very startled driver. The white truck raced out of the place. It was then that they spotted me standing under a nearby tree.

That is how our weekend started. Fun, fun.

Escape – Earlier that very Friday Marcia escaped to her sister Marlene’s place at the south end of the lake. She was not going to play the role of maid and chief cook and bottle washer to four guys, no sir! No way!

We were on our own, and boy did we struggle! Wink wink.

One breakfasts consisted of Dutch pancakes filled with shredded Cambraer cheese and topped with a little Maple syrup. Another morning it was a large batch of Irish steel cut oats. We can’t forget Art’s whole wheat muffins topped with a hot mixture of fresh spinach, cream cheese, and egg whites all topped with a sprinkling of pepper flakes. Did I mention the thin bagels with Lox and chopped onion? We did well.

To top it off, for dinner, the first night they were all here, I made a large batch of Cincinnati Skyline chili with all the fixins. They were all delighted!

Evenings filled with talk and laughter found us sipping iced Dutch Jonge Jenever and a glass or two of Francis Coppola wine along with a sampling of smoked salmon, wined herring, or a blue-cheese stuffed olive.

Really now, does it sound like we struggled?

And, yes Marcia, we made our beds just in case we had visitors.

That reminds me, we heard that while we were out and about Marcia, log book in hand, made a stealth inspection tour of the premises. Oh so sneaky!

Long days – We filled the days by spending time on the water or in the woods. ATV rides on trails and through bogs shook our innards around a bit. On these machines it’s possible to get beyond the more easily reached places, and we did. George said that in his head he began to hear the sound track of that old classic movie Deliverance as we bounced through woods that seemingly had no end.

On the more calm side of things it was a paddle to view Loons or catch a glimpse of a large Blue Heron, inspect a Beaver lodge from a few feet out, or just to drift among the Lilly pads.

Five perfect days of activity and re-connection; five days of time standing still, until you realized it had flown by in just a few heartbeats.

All this was to celebrate Art’s leap into his 60th year. As usual we did it with the craziness the rest of the family has come to expect. Behind it all we celebrated with a love and warmth that is only experienced by a get-together of brothers.

Animal planet – There are some things we do not control – this thought popped to the forefront of my mind when, on Saturday August 10th, a mid summer morning, our little in-wall heater kicked on.

Fini – Make it a great week everyone.
Cheers.
Dirk

From the Archives
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Morning all:
Quote Of The Week:
“The wages of sin are death, but by the time taxes are taken out, it’s just sort of a tired feeling.” — Paula Poundstone

That tired feeling had me firmly in its grip this morning. It was finally the thought of digging into that new Kilo of Tim Horton’s coffee I picked up in Toronto this week that finally motivated me.

That tired feeling can come about from more than just taxes. A week of living with a heat index hovering around 108 will do it. Going in for a root canal and having them say “the front root is too difficult to get at so we’ll have to go through the gum” will also do that. The latter is the exact comment I listened to yesterday morning.

The gum thing is now scheduled for two weeks from now. Last night my half a root canal gave me “that tired feeling” and I took advantage of it by sleeping in this morning.

Every so often something does hit on the mark. My quickie trip into Green Bay had my travel group book me in a ‘boutique’ hotel. Here it was the small 28-room 3 story St. Brendan’s Inn built on the side of the Fox river. What made this place interesting were the great food and the fact that a third of each room was effectively a large ‘wet room’. The Jacuzzi and the rainfall shower were all in the open. Click on the photo to enlarge.

Talk about hitting the mark. This week’s travel to Toronto was ostensibly to unseat a competitor. I have since already received feedback from the prospect—it was very positive. A little gloating shouldn’t matter too much – knock on wood.

For this week’s Hall of Fame there are two new inductees. Adrianne, for taking first steps on the path that begins her professional career. She will be setting up a new outreach program for the local Association for the Blind. Next is Kellen who, at 13-months of age, has graduated and is now officially a human “flotation device”. His final exam was getting dunked in the pool, winter clothes and all, including shoes, bobbing up, turning over, and then calmly float along. Congratulations!

Make it a great week everyone.

Cheers,

Dirk

8/11/2007 07:50:00 AM